Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer.

The Department of Homeland security has wasted up to nearly a half billion dollars in taxpayer money and time on its current plans to develop technology at the nation’s borders to detect nuclear material being smuggled into the country, according to two recent GAO reports cited by a Republican senator on Thursday.

A bill that aims to ban ethnic studies in Arizona schools was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Jan Brewer, cheering critics who called such classes divisive and alarming others who said it’s yet another law targeting Latinos in the state.

The move comes less than 20 days after Brewer signed a controversial immigration bill that has caused widespread protests against the state. The governor’s press office did not return requests for comment Tuesday evening….

‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’… Anything about Shariah Law

Elena Kagan, current Solicitor General of The United States and former Dean of the Harvard Law School, exemplifies selective outrage. She knows a lot about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” when it comes to ROTC on the Harvard Campus, but wears official blinders when it comes to Islamic treatment of homosexuals….

For more information, please visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/115829.stmHealth

Smoking may double the risk of Alzheimer’s

Smoking could double your chance of getting Alzheimer’s

Smokers are more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease as people who have never smoked, according to new research.
The study – the largest ever of its kind and the first major research to look at people before they develop Alzheimer’s – followed 6,870 men and women aged 55 and over.

None of the people had Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, before the study by the Erasmus Medical School in Rotterdam began.

Dementia

Over a two-year period, any who developed signs of dementia were assessed and, where possible, given a brain scan.

A total of 146 people developed dementia during the course of the study, with 105 being diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s.

People who smoked were found to be 2.3 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those who had never smoked.

They were also more likely to get Alzheimer’s at a younger age.

Protective

However, the researchers found that smoking does not increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s for people with a gene linked to the disease.

Indeed, they believe smoking may offer protection against the disease for people with the gene – APOE epsilon 4.

“It seems that if you have the gene, you’re better off if you smoke,” said Dr Monique Breteler, one of the senior researchers.

Beneficial

Previous research said smoking protected from dementia
Previous studies of the links between smoking and Alzheimer’s have suggested smoking could have a beneficial effect on the disease. But their findings have been inconclusive.

The Dutch researchers said this could be because smoking altered the chemistry of the brain and defused some of the effects of Alzheimer’s.

Another reason could be the fact that many smokers do not live long enough to develop the disease, which particularly affects the very elderly.

Powerful

Dr Anthony Mann, an expert in the treatment of elderly people from the Institute of Psychiatry in London, said the new research presented “powerful” evidence.

“They are the first to do a prospective study and it’s the largest to show a positive link,” he said. “It’s the best we’ve had. It takes forward the notion that things that put you at risk for vascular disease, put you at risk for dementia in general.”

Harry Cayton, executive director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Society, said: “Clearly, smoking causes serious health problems. Whether dementia is one of these needs to be further investigated. The Alzheimer’s Disease Society would welcome further research to validate today’s report.”

The surprise hit “Inglourious Basterds” appears to have breathed some life into Weinstein Co., but the independent movie studio is still facing a serious cash squeeze.

Several people familiar with the finances of the company, founded by independent film producers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, said it needs a fresh capital infusion or successive box-office blockbusters to ease the growing pressure.

The four-year-old film company has burned through most of the roughly $1.2 billion in debt and equity financing raised for its launch in 2005, these people said. Now, these people said, the company likely has to do one of two challenging feats: either raise at least $50 million or turn its upcoming slate of films into a series of hits that build on the success of “Inglourious Basterds.”

In a statement, Weinstein said, “The company has the resources to meet all our obligations, from production to release of our films. As far as new financing opportunities, we will always be interested in new deals, provided we see mutual profitability.”

Weinstein Co. is a relatively small studio in the Hollywood landscape. But its financial woes reflect the challenges facing many independent production companies, some of which have closed their doors in recent years, as film financing has dried up and audiences’ tastes have shifted.

In a sign of its troubles earlier this year, Weinstein did not pay back a $75 million bridge loan from Ziff Brothers Investments, according to people familiar with the situation. Interest is accruing on that loan, adding to their debt. That investment firm’s chairman, Dirk Ziff — one of the company’s early backers and a friend of Harvey Weinstein’s — resigned from the Weinstein Co. board this year.

People familiar with the matter said Mr. Ziff continues to work with and support the company. A spokesman for Mr. Ziff declined to comment.

As its woes deepened, the studio hired New York-based investment bank Miller Buckfire to explore restructuring the terms of roughly $600 million in debt financing raised by Goldman Sachs Group. Weinstein Co.’s other startup capital at the time included roughly $500 million in equity financing from, among others, advertising giant WPP PLC. WPP did not return a call seeking comment.

In July, Miller Buckfire completed its work with Weinstein. The investment bank was able to restructure $500 million in securitized debt that starts to mature in 2014, said people familiar with the matter. These people said the firm engineered what people familiar with the arrangement called a “status-quo” restructuring, giving the Weinstein Co. access to cash previously earmarked for loan repayment.

People close to the situation said the insurer of that debt, a division of Ambac Financial Group Inc., has waived some bond covenants, allowing the company to finance marketing and operating expenses from its film library revenue for now.

People familiar with the situation said that money will give the Weinsteins time to produce the rest of the company’s ambitious upcoming slate, which this fall includes “Nine,” based on a Broadway musical, and a version of Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic novel, “The Road.” Additionally, the company was able to spend $35 million marketing “Inglourious Basterds,” Quentin Tarantino’s World War II revenge fantasy, which has taken in more than $100 million at the domestic box office alone. That makes it one of the biggest successes in the company’s short history.

Still, the gains have been diluted. A year before “Inglourious Basterds” hit theaters, Weinstein Co. entered into a profit-sharing deal with Universal Pictures. That allowed it to split costs, but also watered down its income.

More broadly, said people familiar with the situation, Ambac’s waiving of covenants is on a case-by-case basis. The insurer’s aim for now, they said, is to give the studio time to release its scheduled films.

To be sure, the company has other ways to access liquidity, including selling foreign distribution rights to future movies or exploring joint ventures, said a person close to the situation.

Cost cutting has begun. The company has said it plans to cut about 30 employees to shrink the staff of the studio down to 90 employees — at least half its staff size at its peak. Those layoffs come after several earlier rounds of cutbacks and bring its staffing to levels comparable to those of studios producing about the same number of films.

In a statement released by the company, a board member, Richard Koenigsberg, said, “The board is very pleased with the recent successes of ‘Inglourious Basterds’ and ‘Halloween 2,’ as well as ‘Project Runway’s’ record breaking season on the Lifetime Network. The strong upcoming film slate, including ‘The Road,’ ‘Nine,’ ‘Hoodwinked 2′, ‘Youth In Revolt’ and ‘Piranha 3D,’ also make us very optimistic about the company’s potential for continued success at the box office.”

The Weinsteins rewrote the rules of Hollywood in the 1990s, as their Miramax Films turned small-budget pictures like “Pulp Fiction” into blockbusters, and turned literary adult dramas into mainstream fare, including “The English Patient” and “Shakespeare in Love.”

The brothers sold Miramax in 1993 to Walt Disney Co. When they left Miramax in 2005 and announced their next venture, Wall Street banks and other investors were eager to hitch their wagon to the Weinsteins’ star.

An initial offering from Goldman projected that the company would release about 30 films a year, and would rack up more than $160 million in profit by the end of 2009. With three months left in 2009, the brothers appear to have fallen short of that goal, and they are now aiming to release just eight to 10 movies next year.